


Everybody Learns from Disaster

by deadonarrival, soloproject



Series: Our Life's a General Hospital [1]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, M/M, PWP without Porn, Rikkai Dai Fuzoku Chuu, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 06:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9871478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadonarrival/pseuds/deadonarrival, https://archiveofourown.org/users/soloproject/pseuds/soloproject
Summary: In which Yagyuu and Niou grow up, grow apart, then reunite and grow together. Plus they are doctors because I watch so much medical drama.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a beta'd version of a roleplay I do with Julie (aka deadonarrival) where we mainly do character analysis followed by porn. Summary: we flay and then we slay.
> 
> Title stolen from a Dashboard Confessional song (from the album Alter the Ending).

Because fate has a funny way of bringing things together, Yagyuu arrives on his first day of his hospital residency and finds himself face to face with a straight up blast from the past. The man before him is taller, his hair is shorter, he looks quite a bit more exhausted but is otherwise alert. The beauty mark is there, just under his bottom lip and his navy-blue scrubs are neat and clean. His doctor’s coat is very white and neatly printed on the left pocket are the words: Niou Masaharu, MD. Rikkai Med. Niou’s stethoscope is neon pink.

When Yagyuu drags his eyes up to Niou’s face, the expression there is equal parts bemused and curious. Yagyuu can’t even imagine what’s running through Niou’s head right now; he knew when he returned to Rikkai to begin his first year, he would run into people from the neighborhood, from the school. He didn’t even stop to consider that one of them would be working closely with him and that it would be Niou, of all people.

Yagyuu had returned to Kanagawa after running away to Tokyo for University and then med school, mostly at the request of his parents. He wants to be a doctor, has worked hard to come out at the top of the class so he could have his pick of the litter of hospitals to spend his first years in; in the end, he couldn’t say no to his parents and so Rikkai Med, it is. It wasn’t the glorious triumphant return he was hoping for but Yagyuu is determined to make the best of it. These days, Yagyuu is in great shape. He gets as much sleep as he can, tries to eat regularly, he’s focused and he works hard.

Yagyuu and Niou mostly ignore each other through the orientation and Yagyuu is grateful when they are split into separate groups for their shadowing rounds. Upon some careful inquiry, he finds out that most of this group of first years are local, that they all mostly came up through the med school together and that Niou was in the top half of the class, stands out mainly during the last two years of med school, when they focused more on epidemiology, rather than the basics. A tall, lanky first-year in his group lets it slip that Niou wants to be in surgery. Yagyuu thinks it’s rather fitting.

Yagyuu is good at diagnosis and he doesn’t skimp on his participation. When the attending presents the symptoms, he makes suggestions immediately, ignores the snorts and stares at the other first-years. He is singled out to intubate a patient, insert an IV or two which makes him feel very competent. Yagyuu is determined to integrate immediately.

The first few weeks fly by. On top of accomplishing their shifts, they are supposed to stay abreast of the latest journals, hand in feedback on medical research and choose their rotations wisely. This is how Niou and Yagyuu end up in pathology for a few weeks. It’s slow lab work but Yagyuu is fascinated by the way cells look and he’s always been interested in the science of medicine. Niou is also a good worker, even when he tries not to yawn too obviously.

During this time, Yagyuu learns that Niou is a closet nerd. Niou is as good at the epidemiology of medicine as was rumored. Yagyuu often sees him googling things on his phone during their breaks and went headlong into a debate with a superior over what he considered a misdiagnosis. It’s clear that Niou still has a brazen streak in him, that he wields with a not-unfamiliar confidence. But unlike the sketchy confidence of his youth, it’s the confidence of an adult who know what he’s doing. It’s petty but Yagyuu is waiting for a moment when Niou makes a mistake. There are plenty of close calls but Yagyuu knows that Niou is great at connecting the dots, at coming up with innovative and life-saving solutions while wrist deep in someone’s chest. He’s suited to Emergency or Trauma but Niou’s not kidding when he tells Yagyuu, it’s Surgery or zilch.

It’s somewhat frustrating that they work together so well. It’s equally frustrating that everything is still a competition between the both of them.

It’s a slow day in the ER with an endless rotating door of people to stitch up that has Yagyuu praying for his end-of-day iced coffee and Danish that he knows Jackal of Jack’s Coffee has set out for him. Niou is slowly driving him crazy with his pacing and his yawning, even as he kids around with the children he’s patching up and flirting with everyone at the nursing station. Yagyuu feels the childish desire to trip him or push him over or make him do more work which, of course, he is not authorized to do.

 

It’s how they end up in bed together, at the height of summer. It’s hot and people are stupid with it—there are firecracker injuries and drunken boat racing, the inevitable slip’n’slide down a hill by a road. Yagyuu is usually okay with this endless intake of morons but just when he’s off to the gym to unwind with a workout, the aircon breaks and his soul leaves his body. Yagyuu hates to break his own routine so he continues to sweat himself into a fucking coma before his shift and when the doors of the perfectly climate-controlled hospital open and embrace him, he never wants to leave. His own overpriced flat only has a window fan and as a result, Yagyuu is always cranky and angry and resents having to go home.

Yagyuu and Niou find themselves finishing a shift together at the end of a particularly punishing day. They are the only ones in the locker room, moving with a combination of exhaustion and lethargy. Yagyuu is by his locker, digging out his regular clothes, clad in nothing but his black briefs because he just wants to bask in the ice-cold air for five more minutes when Niou walks in, angrily yanking his top off and chucking it into a laundry bin with a lot more force than necessary.

"Having a good day?" Yagyuu knows he sounds catty, his voice a twisting lilt, a mocking thread of ill intent because pushing Niou’s buttons has of late become a newfound pleasure. Winding Niou up is a challenge and an artform and watching him snap is some twisted form of sweet victory. Becoming an adult hasn’t quite drained it from his system. If anything, Yagyuu’s gotten better at it. He doesn’t even turn to look to know that Niou’s twisting around to look at him with narrowed eyes.

“About as good as yours, thanks, Hiroshi.” Niou opens his locker, which is next to his. But then he comes up from behind Yagyuu and his hands drop down on Yagyuu’s hips, at once treacherous and sexual. Yagyuu can feel the heat of his body and he keeps his eyes trained forward, letting Niou pull him closer. “Don’t be a bitch.” Niou hisses, watching Yagyuu’s head fall forward, hair swinging slightly, a flush climbing up his body.

Some things just always work.

 

Niou is good at many things but winding Yagyuu up is near the top of it. He's also good at taking. When Yagyuu makes the minute mistake of turning around where he’s trapped in the circle of Niou’s arms and looking up, Niou just closes the inch-wide gap between their mouths. He doesn't push, he just presses their mouths together, breath mingling in the cool air of the locker room.

Yagyuu has two cm on Niou but Niou can make anyone feel small. He does it right now and Yagyuu startles when Niou pushes his entire frame flat against his, socked feet stepping on Yagyuu’s bare toes, a taunt. Their mouths open at the same time and they kiss slow and leisurely in contrast to the crazy beating of Yagyuu's heart. Yagyuu thinks, lightheaded, that he might forego his customary end-of-shift coffee that he usually needs to make it back home before crashing completely into bed. Right now he feels completely high and somewhat crazy.

Encounters like that don’t happen often. Niou and Yagyuu usually go about their respective days and shifts, working together and apart, always admirably and they run in different circles, connected only in the middle by the hospital and everything in it. And then it happens, on the one awful day when they lose an 8 year old who was crushed by an air bag because his mom sat him in her lap in the front instead of a car seat that Niou's mouth tastes of exhaustion and desperation, his talented hands digging bruises through his scrubs that he pulls away and shyly asks Yagyuu if he wants to crash at his place. "It's nearer," he follows it up, voice blunt. "I have air conditioning."

"Okay," Yagyuu says, even though he can feel his insides petrify with suspense.

 

At 16, Yagyuu was prim and quiet and hated making a scene. Yagyuu would hold his breath when he was coming to keep from making a sound and Niou almost went crazy trying to get him to let go. That was then; now, those missing in-between years hang like a discovery waiting to happen. The people they remember, and the way those things felt a long time ago don't exist anymore.

Yagyuu is older and between then and now he’d discovered what he liked and learned to take it.

Niou wants to be jealous, wants to know all about those in-between years, wants to know who it was who taught Yagyuu to live so seamlessly in his skin because he’s Yagyuu just as much as he’s himself and it feels unfair that this happened without him knowing. In their decade of separation someone cracked Yagyuu wide open and Niou hadn’t felt a thing.

Still, Yagyuu’s mouth is as familiar as it was when he was 16, careful and tentative and soft. But when Niou yanks him into the bedroom there’s teeth now and Yagyuu isn’t afraid to use them. He bites and almost draws blood and Niou’s hands shake against Yagyuu’s t-shirt.

“Fuck me,” Yagyuu growls at him and Niou is slow to catch up, his brain scrambling to take it all in because he’s not sure he’s ever going to see this again. Yagyuu is mercurial and distant and well put together and he could say no tomorrow like nothing had ever happened.

But Niou's strength is reading between the lines. It's in those gaps that he'll settle in, where he'll look for ways to exploit the situation. Niou's medicine is in the details, in his risk-taking. Over the years, the impulsive decision making has become finely tuned calculation and when he looks down at Yagyuu, pale and panting beneath him, he realizes the learning curve is steeper than he expected. He's never been one to talk in bed, but there are so many questions that can't be answered by a well-placed grip or the slow drag of their cocks against each other. When Yagyuu kisses, there are teeth but Niou puts two and two together and knows that Yagyuu's always had teeth- in his sarcasm, in his terse diagnosis, in his pointy doctor's scrawl. It manifests physically now and Niou finds he likes it.

When Niou pushes his wrist into the bed, Yagyuu's eyes narrow. When he squeezes a little harder, Yagyuu growls and grabs his chin to kiss him. The Yagyuu of now is near perfection, his body is lean from his workouts and defined in a hard way. Niou still plays tennis and he still runs but he is pale from studying and skinny from forgetting to eat regularly. From the hungry way Yagyuu looks at him, this doesn't matter.

In bed, Yagyuu snarls in a way that belies his controlled bedside manner. He arcs off the bed when Niou swallows him down, and he fucks Niou's mouth almost desperately. When Niou slides two fingers in him at once, Yagyuu shifts his body to take what he wants and Niou can't help but grin down at him, his pointy teeth peeking over his swollen, wet mouth. Yagyuu squints and bites at him but Niou knows he hasn't needed glasses in a while, just wears them out of habit so he puts his mouth near Yagyuu's ear and describes what he's doing to him in as filthy a way as possible.

It takes some negotiation but Yagyuu is impatient and pushes Niou down onto the bed so he can slide himself down on him.

He's gorgeous like that, riding Niou desperately, hand whipping over his own dick, using Niou like he wants to. But the look in his eyes is almost indulgent too, and kind, and when he comes all over Niou's chest, he sinks down on top of him, hard and soft and very human.

 

“Don’t stop now,” Niou purrs, half smiling into the side of Yagyuu’s face and in the dark room, with their breath mingling hot and humid, Yagyuu says ‘no’. But it’s no in the temporary, it’s no in the right now, it’s no in the very simple sense of just this one request but not a flat out no and Niou knows that. He knows exactly what Yagyuu wants as surely as if Yagyuu detailed the entire thing out for him complete with diagrams and cliff notes.

He flips them over, doesn’t even slip out and grips Yagyuu’s hip hard enough to bruise, forcing Yagyuu’s legs to spread around his hips as he rocks in hard and deep. Niou watches the way Yagyuu’s eyes screw shut and his mouth falls open and where he used to be quiet and careful he is loud and hoarse. The sound echoes in the room and there’s not even an ounce of shame and Niou is so hungry for it.

Yagyuu doesn’t want to get off again; he wants to be _used_ and that’s an entire Pandora’s box of questions that Niou wants to know, that he can’t quite stifle anymore and they start spilling out of him unbidden, hushed almost whispered inquiries about what it is that makes Yagyuu work these days. “You like it hard don’t you? You like it when it hurts in the morning and you feel the ache for days after. You like being used.” Yagyuu’s thighs are shaking and he covers his eyes with one arm and moans _yes_ repeatedly. Niou’s words are half-accusatory and half-promising— like he wants Yagyuu to know that he’s happy to give him what he needs, so long as he can take a little for himself.

Niou comes, buried all the way inside Yagyuu, panting. It’s the closest thing Niou’s felt to being in love in years and it’s toxic and dirty.

Yagyuu tries to leave, even gets as far as pulling on his underwear before Niou is dragging him back down, kissing between his shoulder blades and says: “stay.” Yagyuu does.

 

The next morning, Niou's scrubs fit Yagyuu perfectly except for that fact that they're Niou's and the way his eyes slid up and down Yagyuu's body when he left for his 4 AM shift were dark and proprietary. It made Yagyuu feel self-conscious and he tries to quell the feeling by telling himself he has a spare kit in his locker.

But Yagyuu knows unless necessary that he won't change, that there is something delicious and dangerous about wearing Niou's clothes. He refuses the hoodie though--it's a little too much and he doesn't kiss Niou goodbye, they'll see each other in a few hours when Niou rolls in at 7 AM, double-fisting breakfast sandwiches.

Yagyuu drops by the coffee shop quick enough to get his coffee to go. He doesn't stick around to talk to Jackal who waves him off, an understanding look on his face, after silently doubling his order. Bunta is less forgiving, scowling as he walks by, although whether from because he's in on a rare 4 AM opening shift or from actual distrust, Yagyuu isn't sure.

By the time, Niou appears, Yagyuu has already dried out a band of drunk fraternity brothers and set the broken leg of a young kid who had fallen down the stairs trying to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

Niou looks disgustingly fresh, as one usually does at the start of shift. But he doesn't try to corner Yagyuu, just goes about his day as if last night didn't happen at all. There's a long day ahead of them both, if the whiteboard is any indication and if they do well until the end of the month, the best first year is going to get their choice of the next rotation.

They don’t go home together that night. Or the next night. Or the one after. Yagyuu doesn’t see him for two days before it’s suddenly his day off and he isn’t quite sure what to do with the time. Normally, he has a plan— a go to the gym, then study, then have a nice dinner plan. Today, he can’t seem to focus.

He goes for a run and tries to shake the weird feeling out of his body, but every time he takes too deep a breath, there’s still a sharp edge in his chest that seems to call him out and mutter traitor though it’s hard for him to decipher why.

So Yagyuu runs until the feeling gets dull and when he pulls to a jog he’s in front of Niou’s flat and he knows he’s in there.

When they were younger, in middle school, they had looked nearly identical. Their teacher would often confuse them and hand them back the wrong papers and it always made them feel a little full of themselves. Like they could do anything and get away with murder. They had always looked a bit alike, the same sharp features, and the same noses and they’d had that uncanny ability that true twins have of being able to read where the other was. That went for emotions and physicality.

And while some of that had waned, apparently, some of it stuck around.

Yagyuu goes to the door and knocks, breathing still heavy and waits.

 

Niou opens the door and because he's a bastard, doesn't let Yagyuu in. Instead he leans against the doorway and pins Yagyuu with a look. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" He drawls, drawing the line. Yagyuu scowls and shoves past him, scrubbing the line out.

Niou is still wearing his scrubs, which makes sense because he couldn't have come home more than an hour ago but he also already has some pasta going on the stove and an opened jar of pre-made sauce on the counter. It's perfect Niou, a study in contrasts. A guy who won't bother to chop up vegetables for a sauce but will make a little fresh pasta. He's opened a bottle of some ridiculous craft brew and he doesn't comment when Yagyuu just opens the fridge to help himself. They drink and eye each other from across the kitchen, like idiots, like when they were children and their teacher had to separate them after a rare scuffle.

The scabs are mostly emotional now though. Yagyuu is proud he'd been able to cultivate them as such. There was a time when their friendship was constantly raw and always steadily bleeding, when their growth spurts were mental, when their game wasn't coordinated and they were forced to admit that growing apart was part of growing up.

Niou doesn't ask if Yagyuu wants to eat like he knows the answer. So he just dishes up a plate for himself and eats standing up, even when Yagyuu opens another beer for himself. There is a whole conversation going on but neither of them are quite ready to ask of the other beyond what's already happening. In the end, Niou just leaves his dirty dishes in the sink, comes up to Yagyuu and digs his fingers into Yagyuu's scalp. The touch is a shock but they _are_ doctors so if Niou is trying to put him to sleep, he's almost succeeding.

"Are you staying the night?" Niou asks him, his teeth extremely white in the dim light of the kitchen. "Because if you do, I'm going to fuck you awake."

Yagyuu groans at this and bares his teeth in reply and just like that, they're off.

 

Niou nudges him in the direction of the shower and joins him because personal space is something for people who haven’t seen so much of each other that they essentially inhabit one another’s bodies interchangeably. Niou of course has one of those shower heads that half drowns you in water, and Yagyuu stands directly under it, forcing Niou to stand just outside the range of the spray.

He knows it’s petty and annoying but it’s not like that’s going to stop him from doing it. He deals in petty and annoying, it’s how he got through most of med school and if it could take him through finals week senior year it can sure as hell get him through dealing with whatever Niou wants to throw at him.

What he doesn’t expect is kindness. Yagyuu doesn’t expect to close his eyes and feel hands in his hair, massaging in shampoo and hitting all the right pressure points. He knows why Niou wants to be a surgeon, he has perfect hands - the long delicate fingers that always know just how hard to press, how careful to touch. He’s using them the same way he uses a scalpel, as an extension of his intellect and being the central focus of all that attention is heady.

They trade slippery, open-mouthed kisses as Niou tips Yagyuu’s head back to rinse out the soap, Niou’s mouth hotter than the water as it trails down Yagyuu’s throat. But it’s not a demanding touch, it’s not a promise of anything, it’s just a comforting gesture. He’s winding Yagyuu back down, the same way he’s able to twist him up and with both he completely wrings him out afterwards.

This time they go to bed, just to bed. Yagyuu is still damp and they pull the covers up around them like they’ll keep the world away with the duvet.

 

The following week is grim. Every month, the performance review comes in and the first year with the best review gets to pick his next rotation; everyone else just gets whatever is left. Yagyuu gets the upper hand this month and he picks neuro--Niou gets the short end of the stick and gets stuck in psych. Niou doesn’t hate psych, on the contrary, he kinda enjoys it. But Sakaki, a visiting resident and neurosurgeon from Hyotei Med is visiting and the rumor was he was a practical guy who let first years stand in during his surgeries. Yagyuu is equal parts excited and conflicted because Niou all but shuts down on him, replies to all but the least urgent texts and shuffles into weekly meetings rumpled and disturbed.

Sakaki is hard on Yagyuu and the other residents but it’s thrilling on top of that. He’s hungry to learn, feels like he’s firing on all cylinders. Sakaki does allow first years to stand in during surgery but Yagyuu is on cloud nine when he is singled out to sew up a scalp after the removal of a benign meningioma.

“Nice work, Dr. Yagyuu. You could’ve been a tailor in another life. This will hardly scar.” Sakaki says, as he’s dumping his surgical scrubs into a medical waste bin.

Yagyuu wants to tell someone but his colleagues are all Type A, hyper-competitive folk and Niou is equal parts incredibly busy and ignoring him. Plus they aren’t…anything. They talk civilly and they sleep together on occasion but Niou isn’t bursting to talk about his feelings and Yagyuu isn’t getting to the top by crying his way there.

His thoughts are interrupted by a huge mug being set in front of him, as well as a huge sandwich and Yagyuu comes back to himself. He’s sitting in Jack’s with a pile of journals and highlighters, digging through data about a series of clinical trials requested of him by the attending. Jack’s looking down at him with his hands on his waist, a bland, questioning look on his face. Jackal is a critical part of the Rikkai Med community, almost single-handedly keeping everyone in caffeine and sustenance.

"Ï’m not hu--,” Yagyuu starts.

“You’ve been sitting here for four hours. After your shift.” Jackal just says. Ï’d say go home but I think you’re avoiding it.”

"Ïf I needed therapy, I would pay for it,” Yagyuu snaps, feeling immediately sad, immediately corseting up the feeling inside his chest. Jackal doesn’t deserve his lip, when he has the power to deny Yagyuu the most delicious roast he’s ever had.

"Öh, the therapy is free,” Jackal just says, easily. “The food goes on your tab.”

Yagyuu watches as Jackal heads back behind the counter. They stare openly at each other across the café until Yagyuu brings the bagel sandwich, prosciutto and egg white with avocado—his favorite, goddamnit—to his mouth to take a bite. Jackal’s grin is blinding in its triumph.

Yagyuu chews the sandwich with some measure of resentment, rubbing his temple in chagrin. He hates being dependent, hates being transparent to the point of being easily read. He hates that Niou can ignore him and he bribed the head nurse with chocolate to tell him when Niou’s shifts were. He’s still not sure if it’s to help avoid him or catch him.

“Hey.“ It’s the devil himself. Niou’s dragging a chair towards him because Yagyuu’s piled the other chairs at his table with journals. He flips it around and straddles it before unwrapping an enormous sandwich and taking a bite.

“Hey.” Yagyuu replies, wary. “How was your shift?” He makes himself continue, even as he aggressively highlights a passage.

“Long. Depression. Schizophrenia. Various mental disorders. You?”

“Sakaki is a great neurosurgeon. I can’t say I like his cravats, though.” Yagyuu licks his finger so he can turn a page and sneaks a peek at Niou. Niou does look exhausted and is somehow even more achingly handsome than after he emerges fresh from a shower.

Yagyuu hates this small talk but is intensely grateful for the comfortable silence that follows, the only sounds being the whisper of his marker over the paper and Niou’s lazy open-mouthed chewing. And then Niou’s big, beautiful hand reaches out and comes down on top of his, stopping his marking and forcing him to look into Niou’s face.

"I miss you. Come home with me?” Niou asks.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rikkai Med.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12323595) by [greensilverserpent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greensilverserpent/pseuds/greensilverserpent)




End file.
